Auguste Renoir Odalisque 1870, oil on canvas at the National Gallery in Washington, D.c.
A Friend, A Job, A Painting, A Lie
just the other day i ran into an old friend her name? well i couldn’t say… i remembered then we were close once, as she walked away
night shift at Denny’s i kept cups filled with coffee serving strangers for pennies and kept company with other odd night owls like me
intoxicating her dark eyes piercing my soul provocatively posing she draws me in close ensnared by her charm, she swallows me whole
it’s just a white lie you’re just trying to be nice so look ‘em straight in the eye don’t let them ask twice bend the truth a bit, that’s my advice
~kat
Na/GloPoWriMo 2022 Day 21 Prompt: write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Finally, close the poem with an unanswerable question.
For today i decided to use the Horatiodet, a short form of the Horatian Ode that I created a few years ago. I wrote a stanza for each part. They don’t really mesh. Not sure if they were supposed to, but it’s on prompt and you get 4 for 1 today! 😊
The Horatiodet is a total of 5 lines, syllable count: 5-7-7-5-9 / rhyme scheme: ababb. In other words, it is a short Horatian Ode (only one stanza), a form based on the style of Horace, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC), the leading Roman lyric poet.
1- the day and gloam meet subtle wafts of musky air, leaves, weary of summer heat crisp, clinging tight where parched sap chokes mid-limb, no life to spare
2- pencils freshly sharp notes of soft wood, shaved lead, tools of learning the three R’s, art, notebooks, college-ruled students, masked, head anxiously to school
3- pumpkin that and this, ad nauseam, morning brew concoctions promising bliss at a price, it’s new again, some wait all year, sad but true
4- blink and time is gone soft body, aching, graying, dreams unrealized, nights long and dark, days fading winter coming soon, too soon, just saying
5- another harvest wisdom gleaned from books and tears choose your poison, leave the rest the death we most fear… not living life full while we are here
~kat
A new form, to me at least, lured me from hiding…actually, forced me from what has become the chaos of surviving. I paired it with my own creation, the horatiodet. Ode to my favorite season.
The cadralor is a poem of 5, unrelated, numbered stanzaic images, each of which can stand alone as a poem, is fewer than 10 lines, and ideally constrains all stanzas to the same number of lines. Imagery is crucial to cadralore: each stanza should be a whole, imagist poem, almost like a scene from a film, or a photograph. The fifth stanza acts as the crucible, alchemically pulling the unrelated stanzas together into a love poem. By “love poem,” we mean that your fifth stanza illuminates a gleaming thread that runs obliquely through the unrelated stanzas and answers the compelling question: “For what do you yearn?” gogyoka
Horatiodet is a total of 5 lines, syllable count: 5-7-7-5-9 / rhyme scheme: ababb. In other words, it is a short Horatian Ode (only one stanza), a form based on the style of Horace, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC), the leading Roman lyric poet.
on the forest floor lies the shell of an old tree stubbly roots exposed, its core now heartless, empty grist for grubs, in death humility
~kat
For NaPoWriMo 2021 - Day 3...Off topic, but I promise to work on my personal deck. It seems like a worthwhile project to inspire future poetry. For today...a Horatiodet (my own short version of the Horatian Ode...a Form i came up with when i was doing daily micropoetry.) A Horatiodet is a total of 5 lines, syllable count: 5-7-7-5-9 / rhyme scheme: ababb. In other words, it is a short Horatian Ode (only one stanza), a form based on the style of Horace, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC), the leading Roman lyric poet.
Busy day today. Just a wee bit late to the party. True story: We laughed so hard today. Gosh it felt good. There hasn’t been much to laugh about these days, but oh, how I needed it!
The Best Medicine
I had forgotten
how healing laughter could be.
That sweet rush of endorphins,
it is ecstasy,
the joy of letting go completely.
With a focus on the ordinary (as in ordinary, everyday people, places, or things) I created a new form I called the Horatiodet. See what I did there? It’s a portmanteau that combines the words Horacian+Ode+et. A Horatiodet is a total of 5 lines, syllable count: 5-7-7-5-9 / rhyme scheme: ababb. In other words, it is a short Horacian Ode (only one stanza), a form based on the style of Horace, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC), the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.
outside my window
eastern bluebirds happen by
azure wings, orange breast bows
causing me to sigh
how they make these hours inside fly
~kat
With a focus on the ordinary (as in ordinary, everyday people, places, or things) I created a new form I called the Horatiodet. See what I did there? It’s a portmanteau that combines the words Horacian+Ode+et. A Horatiodet is a total of 5 lines, syllable count: 5-7-7-5-9 / rhyme scheme: ababb. In other words, it is a short Horacian Ode (only one stanza), a form based on the style of Horace, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC), the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.
So it is easier for you to find all the parts/chapters of my ongoing fiction series, I created a new page that lists all the links. You can check it out HERE!
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